From tango to La Tohu, the best Montreal dance of 2015

As always when the year is drawing to a close, I think back on the Montreal dance shows of the past 12 months that impressed me most with their creativity and execution. Above all, I think of the depth of feelings that these shows generated, not only in the “serious” dramatic vein, but in the equally important comic mode. So of the shows I saw — with apologies to choreographers whose shows I missed — here are the local dance events that left the greatest impression on me in 2015.

As an Argentine tango enthusiast, I looked forward to Milonga, a show with five spectacular tango couples and two contemporary dancers whose group choreography was overseen by the Belgian master of contemporary dance fusion, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Advance buzz was excellent, and the show did not disappoint. Tango’s theatrical flash was evident — the lifts were eye-popping — but Cherkaoui typically added his own iconoclastic bent, especially in one sequence in which each couple, instead of facing each other, danced back to back. The virtuosity, however, always had a musical underpinning, which made it dramatic rather than simply acrobatic. An attention-grabbing show from start to finish.

Boris Eifman’s Anna Karenina dispensed with most of Tolstoy’s novel, focusing on the book’s tragic love triangle. Oleg Markov as the cuckolded husband, Karenin, was a more interesting personage than the lover, Vronsky (Oleg Gabyshev). But both men shone in intricately choreographed duets with Maria Abashova, whose pliant body in the title role well served Eifman’s twisty moves. A highlight of this uneven ballet was the finale featuring the Eifman Ballet chorus representing the train that kills Anna. The rhythmic buildup evoked real fear.

Tauerbach: Alain Platel’s work presents a profoundly humanist view of the world.

Uneven, too, was Les Ballets C de la B’s Tauberbach by Belgium’s Alain Platel, but this story about a group of homeless people living amid a Brazilian junk heap presented a profoundly humanist view of the world. Misfits in the “normal” world, the group created its own residence in the dump and felt at home there, which is a notion many people might well find bizarre. Tauberbach itself was a misfit, neither dance nor theatre. But in today’s dance world, such categories are increasingly losing relevance. In November, Platel received Montreal’s Grand Prix de la Danse for the body of his work.

No problem distinguishing the dance in shows by Gauthier Dance from Stuttgart, by the National Ballet of Canada or by Ballet B.C. All had works by various dance makers who signed their choreography with bold strokes.

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Eric Gauthier’s company has had rousing success in Europe by presenting programs of crowd-pleasing short pieces often tinged with humour and sexiness. Pieces like his Ballet 101 and Itzik Galili’s Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White were genuinely funny. Other pieces like Alejandro Cerrudo’s Pacopepepluto and Alexander Ekman’s Two Become Three slyly exploited the sex appeal that disrobing or disrobed dancers inherently have on stage.

A Canadian company firmly on the upswing, Ballet B.C., showed off its dancers’ mobility in a triple bill of thoughtful contemporary works by Jacopo Godani, Johan Inger and Medhi Walerski. Godani last year succeeded William Forsythe as artistic director of the Forsythe Company.

Speaking of Forsythe, his early work for the National Ballet of Canada, The Second Detail, was splendidly performed when NBoC returned here in October, making Forsythe’s fusion of funky and classical a delight. NBoC also shone in Wayne McGregor’s typically complex Chroma.

Montreal choreographers seem to thrive on sombre themes. Louise Bédard’s restaging of her award-winning 1997 solo, Cartes postales de chimère, went inside the world of memory. Unsentimental yet poignant, the solo was alternately performed by Isabelle Poirier and Lucie Vigneault, who won the 2015 Montreal Prix de la Danse interpreter award.

There were some touching scenes, too, in Pluton, a unique collaboration involving five veteran local performers — Michèle Fèbvre, Louise Bédard, Ginette Laurin, Daniel Soulières and Linda Rabin — and four young choreographers, Nicolas Cantin, Catherine Gaudet, Virginie Brunelle and Jean-Sébastien Lourdais. Brunelle’s duet for Laurin and Soulières had an especial tinge of nostalgia coming more than 30 years after the two last danced on stage together. The duet’s threads unravelled somewhat toward the end, when the dancers stepped out of their roles and began teasing each other like an old couple. But faced with such charming affection, who can quibble? Let’s hope that others follow the initiative of the dance collective, La 2e Porte à gauche, and stage more collaborations between the generations.

Triptyque: Victor Quijada and Marie Chouinard contributed to the show that blurs line between dance and circus acrobatics.

At various times during the year, I wrote about the increasing influence of dance on circus shows. Indeed, the stage-in-the-round at La Tohu has become virtually a centre for new choreography. In the past year, major Montreal choreographers like Marie Chouinard, Hélène Blackburn and Victor Quijada staged exciting works there for various circus performers, not to speak of the choreographed shows presented by visiting out-of-town troupes. The numbers have ranged from abstract movement to storytelling, from gravely serious to outlandishly comical. The dance-circus trend seems only to be increasing and becoming more sophisticated as choreographers learn to exploit the full potential of acrobats’ physical gifts, circus equipment, and a stage in-the-round. The contemporary circus is one of the hot points in dance today.

Most memorable dance show of 2015? Undoubtedly it was Stephan Thoss’s Death and the Maiden, created for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. The show’s depiction of attitudes about death had an intellectual and emotional richness that rewards repeated viewings. An earlier Thoss masterwork for Les Grands, Dream Away, gets re-staged in May. Something to look forward to in 2016.

Until then, Happy New Year!

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UPCOMING DANCE

For some lighthearted dance fare to start off 2016, try Salute to Vienna, the annual New Year’s Day show at Place des Arts. This year, European ballet dancers share the stage with professional ballroom dancers performing to a 65-member orchestra. Soprano Karina Gauvin and tenor Tilmann Unger add familiar arias to a show that’s light in spirit. A relaxed way to dance in the New Year.

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